BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

… Ben had turned up the volume slightly on the television when the Saturday night movie had been interrupted for a breaking news update. Brandee Street, her cameraman, and the pilot had been arrested all right—but not before getting the morbid video into the station’s hands. Even through the overblown colors of the malfunctioning set, you could easily make out Ben, Constance and me on the balcony of the apartment. We had fought a desperate fight, but in the end the sheet had fluttered enough to give at least a partial view of the woman’s nude remains.

We all stared silently at the picture as the talking heads behind the anchor desk identified us each in succession. It was all we could do to stifle disgusted sighs as they proceeded to tag us with a sensationalized nickname. A moniker that would unfortunately not only stick for some time to come but was also picked up immediately by every other station and newspaper in the bi-state area. We had been christened “The Ghoul Squad.” …

Some of you may recognize the above paragraphs as having been excerpted from Never Burn A Witch, the second novel in my Rowan Gant Investigations series. And, if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter it’s a fairly good bet you’ve already heard about the “official” RGI GHOUL SQUAD. But then, maybe you haven’t, so that’s why I am going to flap my metaphorical gums about it here.

One of my fans, Walter Hardin Jr. to be exact – as I definitely want to give credit where credit is due – mentioned to me that I really needed a “Street Team” to free me up from some of the time-sucking promotional activities that come with the whole “being an author” profession. I thought I knew what a “Street Team” was, but soon discovered that there are two types – professional and fan-based. It was then I remembered something from my youth – The KISS Army. I was never a member myself, what with Styx being my ear candy of choice, but believe me I went to school with many of the KA inductees.

So, I did a bit of research. Then I researched some more. Then I got together with my publicist (Wendy) and my pa/publicist (Scott). They both gave me some great input. Then I ran it past a couple of friends, one of whom had done time in the music biz – they all had great input too. Some ideas were weeded out, others were solidified. The ones we liked most got a quick swipe of the photo fixative lacquer – sorry… had an old 1960’s Polaroid moment there… Anywho, it seemed like in the matter of just a few days I went from, “Street Team? What’s that?” to “YEEHAAAAA! Street Team!”

Better yet, a whole bunch of folks out there in Interwebz land did too…

And so, the RGI GHOUL SQUAD was officially born.

Complete with its very own website and everything, the “Squad” was set to go live January 1, 2010. But, that was before I committed premature post-aculation. By this I mean, while starting to write the posts that would fill the news section of the RGI GHOUL SQUAD website I neglected to turn off the ping.fm updater. As soon as I let loose with that first post it was all over Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace – not to mention a few other social networking venues.

Email began to pour in – “The join link doesn’t work!”, “There’s a password on xyz link so I can’t get to it!”, “I want to join right now!”… and so on. You get the picture.

Suddenly, I was busier than a cat covering up sh*t with all my email answering to explain the situation. But, I just couldn’t keep up. Don’t get me wrong, I was – and am – ecstatic that so many folks expressed an interest in the “Squad”. I simply wasn’t prepared to handle my screwup.

So, instead of fighting a losing battle I focused my energies and resources on making things happen a little quicker. Therefore, the RGI GHOUL SQUAD officially went “live” 18 days early – this past Sunday, December 13, 2009 to be exact. Hmmmm, 13… Seems kind of fitting in a lot of ways.

If you think you might be interested in checking out the “Squad,” its benefits – and responsibilities – then maybe even joining up, you can find the official website at www.rowangant.com.

Just be aware – I am NOT going to wear all that facepaint, breathe fire, spit fake blood, or even sing Rock And Roll All Nite…

Well… Okay… Maybe I’ll sing, but only after a few beers.

More to come…

Murv

I’ve never really been all about the video game stuff. I mean, after all, “PONG” was the biggie when I was a kid. In my teens things got really advanced and we had stuff like Asteroids. I actually used to be pretty damn good at Asteroids. I had a tactic of holding the thruster button down and spinning the little triangle shaped ship in a circle while blasting the holy hell out of the space debris that was barreling in on top of me. Kinda like that “death blossom” maneuver in the movie “The Last Starfighter”… Yeah, obscure movie reference, but you know me… Suffice it to say, back then my friends called me the “Han Solo” of Asteroids, because I could play for hours without getting blown up or even encased in carbonite, not that the latter was actually an option…

Even so, that’s pretty much where my “Video Game Wizard” career ended. The Who never wrote a song about me, even though I am now about half deaf and wear bifocals. A buddy of mine who filks wrote a song about me once, but it had more to do with my books than it did my ancient video game prowess…

Yeah, I’m chasing chickens again, aren’t I?  Oh well, you know how I am….

So, on to the real story here… As I’ve mentioned before, the O-spring has one of those hand held, Nintendo DS things. She also has an enormous number of cartridges that go along with it. Among her favorites are the pet hospital/trainer sort of things. She has several, and you can often find her running a grooming salon, doctoring zoo animals, or simply taking a dog for a walk, all via that noisy, pink, folding rectangle with all the buttons.

Now, one of the interesting things about these Nintendo DS dealies is that they have voice recognition. Yeah, you can talk to them. So, whenever the O-spring is training an animal we tend to hear her talking to the DS. Such was the case just the other night…

Her Supreme Evilness and I were taking a moment to veg and have a look at something on the toob. O-spring was parked on the couch and whatever it was we had elected to watch wasn’t to her fancy, therefore she had her nose buried in the DS. Via points, virtual money, or whatever it is that you do, she had obtained a new pet for her menagerie and she was endeavoring to train it to sit, roll over, etc via voice commands. During the commercials I would listen to her barking commands at the electronic pet, repeating them over and over while the stress level in her tone grew. It was obvious that her frustration was mounting.

Eventually, long about the third or fourth round of commercials, the munchkin let loose with one of her hallmark shrieks. You know, the 9 year old who’s lost her patience squeal. I continued rocking in my chair, but turned my head and asked her what was wrong.

“My bunny won’t do what I tell it to do!” she lamented.

“You’re trying to teach a rabbit to sit?” I asked.

She all but wailed, “Yes! But it won’t do it!”

“Well, honey,” I said. “Rabbits aren’t exactly the kind of pets you teach those kinds of tricks to.”

Now, one would think that this is the punch line of the story. I mean, the kid was trying to teach a virtual rabbit to sit and roll over. It’s bad enough when it’s a virtual dog, but come on, a rabbit?

But, as you are sure to have guessed by now, the Peter Cottontail factor isn’t the whole story. It’s part of it, but the real punchline is still coming…

The O-spring barked another string of “sits” at the pink rectangle, then once again let out a frustrated shriek.

“Honey,” I tried to soothe her. “I really think you picked the wrong kind of animal to train. Rabbits don’t respond to voice commands like dogs do.”

Without missing a beat, the kid wailed, “BUT IT DOES WHATEVER MOMMY TELLS IT TO DO!”

I can’t say as that I blame the damn thing. I mean, we are talking about The Evil Redhead here…

The problem is, I am now having some really bizarre nightmares…

The one that recurs constantly involves the Easter Bunny. E K has him strapped to a giant frying pan and she’s beating him with an oversized spatula while he screams, “Cadbury! My safe word is Cadbury!”

Don’t worry. It disturbs me too…

More to come…

Murv